*ONLY USE THE SOURCES PRESENTED/ NO OUTSIDE SOURCES*

What is the mercantilist economic theory?  Explain what mercantilists understood as wealth.  What are the implications for this perception of wealth when it comes to things like trade, and the acquisition of goods for trade?  From the two short reading excerpts provided in module 9, explain the economic justifications provided by the pro-slavery lobby for the continuation of the practice. Since sugar was the commodity produced by the Caribbean plantations and it was a commodity in great demand in Europe, could we argue that Caribbean slave plantation systems were promoted and protected by the European states partially as a result of mercantilist beliefs (you need to basically connect, sugar, mercantilism, slavery…)

To avoid having you drift off-topic, I have devised a series of questions that will hopefully make sure you are on track. If you have completed the essay you can use these as a checklist.

1- What are the basic economic principles/features of Mercantilism? What did it recommend a government do? Use our lecture on mercantilism to answer this question and define mercantilism very clearly. Make sure that you highlight how mercantilist measured wealth.

Do not turn this into a discussion about the place of the colonies in the mercantilist system (that is a different issue outside of our scope.)

2- Once you have spelled out the basic economic features of mercantilism, consider the following questions: Where the sugar colonies profitable? Did they add to a nation’s wealth? You can use lecture as well as assigned readings to answer this and to find evidence and numbers.

3-If sugar is a valuable and sought-after commodity, what happens if a nation does not produce its own, but has to import it? 

4-Starting with the Portuguese what model of sugar plantations had they established that had proven to be very profitable? In the planters’ minds were there alternatives different from slavery to get the labor force that plantations needed? Why did they consider African slaves the ideal workforce for these plantations?

Make sure that your thesis statement clearly makes an argument for a connection between mercantilism, sugar and the acceptance of slavery as, at the very least, a necessity. 

As always be sure to cite and quote, and for the love of all that you hold dear, do submit unoriginal work, you will most likely be caught and accordingly sanctioned!

Instructions:

Your essay should be no longer than 4 pages.  Use 12 point script and please double space.  Please utilize normal pre-set (1 inch) margins.

When citing the material, especially when using direct quotes, please use footnote citations.  (In Word go to References and Footnote and then type your source information.)  Works cited page is not a substitute for footnotes.  If you need guidance or help with this please do not hesitate to come to visit with me or the TA’s.

Use Chicago Manual of Style for referencing.  You can find brief guides readily available online.

Please use your textbook, your notes and the Wilberforce article for this essay. Do not use outside sources.

The European Enlightenment
The Age of Reason

1

Dating The Enlightenment

• The most given dates for the Enlightenment vary somewhat between
1

6

5

0-1

8

1

4

, or 1

7

00-

17

8

9

.

• The difficulty with dating comes about because it is near impossible
to draw a clean demarcation line between the Scientific Revolution
(which is associated by some with the Late Renaissance) and the
Enlightenment.

• The Enlightenment is according to many an extension of the Scientific
Revolution.

• The Scientific Revolution was focused on the physical world, while the
Enlightenment attempted to apply the new scientific methods to the
social and political realms.

2

The New Science

•

16

05 Francis Bacon publishes “The Advancement of Science” and
follows this up in 16

20

“Novum Organum.”

• According to Bacon “the duty of the scientist was to observe and test
nature for himself following the inductive method.”

• The inductive method basically turns the deductive method on its
head. It is often referred to as the “bottom up” approach. “ In
inductive reasoning, we begin with specific observations and
measures, begin to detect patterns and regularities, formulate some
tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and finally end up
developing some general conclusions or theories.”

The description of the inductive method used here comes from:
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php.

3

From Science to Politics

• By the late 17th century the new scientific method had royal and
aristocratic patronage.

• Charles II of England establishes British Royal Society for the Sciences
1662.

• French Royal Academy of Sciences established in 1666.

• Yet despite royal patronage, the application of this new scientific
method to social and political questions during the enlightenment
would often (but not always) challenge the status quo, including
monarchial forms of government.

4

Great Thinkers of the Enlightenment

• What follows is a poor small sampling of the many great thinkers of
the enlightenment

• In addition to slides that follow please read pp526-527 in text book
(primary source selections)

5

Thomas Hobbes (b.

15

88-d.1679)

• Thomas Hobbes was an English political philosopher and is regarded by some as
one of the founders of western political thought.

• 1651 publishes Leviathan

• Best known for his concept of the social contract as a foundation for governance.
A contract that exists between ruled and ruler, in which the ruled agree to certain
constraints on their freedoms in order to live in an ordered society. This in
essence is an acknowledgement of the idea of rule by consent.

• However, Hobbes given his own observations of humans, his belief in their
inherent cruel impulses (greed, selfishness …) believed that only a strong
government in the form of an absolute monarch could successfully govern them.

• The social contract once entered into was all but inviolate. Hence, revolutions are
not justified except in all but extreme cases, and those are all but nonexistent.

• To Hobbes life without a strong government, or life in the “state of nature” is
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

6

Hobbes

7

John Locke (b.1632 – d.1704)

• An English political philosopher and rough contemporary of Hobbes.
Regarded by some as one of the founders of western liberal political
thought (classical liberalism.)

• In his book, Two Treatises of Government, Locke explained that all men
have Natural Rights, which are Life, Liberty, and Property.

• People have the right to rebel against a government that does not protect
those rights. A harsh critic of absolutist government.

• In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding published 1690 he
promoted the concept of innate equality arguing that all of us are born a
blank slate (tabula rasa) and our thoughts and intelligence are products of
our experiences. His ideas were not widely acclaimed.

• His own observations of human nature led him to believe that humans
could be reasonable and moral.

8

Locke

9

Baron de Montesquieu (b.1689-d.1755)

• French political philosopher and enlightenment thinker.

• 1748 published The Spirit of the Laws, which argues for what today
we would call the separation of the powers.

• He argued that the best form of government would divide its powers
into a Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branch. Montesquieu
explained that this would result in a system where each branch would
work to Check and Balance the others. (I hope this sounds familiar to
all of you!)

10

Montesquieu

11

Voltaire (b.1694-d.1778)
• French Francois Marie Arouet although went by the name of Voltaire.

• French essayist, satirist, and philosopher.

• A huge critic of the Catholic Church and of the monarchy, but also of
religion in general. Despite this he argued for religious tolerance and
freedom of worship.

• Purportedly a great promoter of freedom of speech. In an apocryphal
saying attributed to him he is said to have commented: “I do not agree with
a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

• Most influential book published in 1759 , Candide, in which he alludes to
the benefits of self rule over such alternatives such as enlightened
monarchs who he had come to believe were unreliable. As the concluding
line goes “It is up to us to cultivate our garden.”

12

Jean Jacques Rousseau (b.1712-d.1778)

• Genevan writer and political philosopher (moved to France 1742)

• His most celebrated political work The Social Contract was published
in 1762.

• In this work he argued that government should be run according to
the will of the majority, which he called the “General Will.” He
claimed the General Will would always act in the best interest of the
people as it is above and beyond the individual.

• Rousseau also wrote and commented on social inequality (The
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) in which he argued human
beings are generally decent but are corrupted by circumstances.

13

Rousseau

14

Immanuel Kant (b.1724-d.

18

04)

• Prussian (German) Philosopher

• To him the enlightenment was encapsulated in the following Latin phrase: Sapere aude!
This is translated as Dare to Know!

• Changing peoples world views and changing the world by radically transforming political
and social institutions.

• Kant urged humans to fall in order to learn to walk. He urged them to leave behind their
“minority” and seek to attain their “majority” and hence independent thought and
direction; rather than continuing to be lead “by those guardians who have kindly taken it
upon themselves to supervise them; after they have made their domesticated animals
dumb…” (What is Enlightenment?) This is undoubtedly a call for political action and
participation.

• Kant is accounted as the father of “liberal secularism.”

• According to Kant “the greatest problem for the human species, the solution of which
nature compels him to seek, is that of attaining a civil society which can administer
justice universally.”

15

Kant

Johann Gottlieb Becker (1720-1782) – http://www.philosovieth.de/kant-
bilder/bilddaten.html

16

Among Most Emblematic Products

• The French Encyclopedia: Produced by Denis Diderot and d’Alembert
(1752-1772.) Published in 28 volumes. It had contributions from over
200 European leading intellectuals. The encylopedia attempted to
collect, preserve, disseminate the totality of human knowledge. A
massive undertaking.

• “Free trade capitalism” as argued for in Adam Smith’s Wealth of
Nations (shortened title) should be listed here.

• We can also consider the US constitution a product of the
enlightenment.

17

Title Page of the French Encyclopedie

18

Organizational Structure

The curious among you can see here how the branches into which they broke down
and organized human knowledge

19

Wealth of Nations
(Full Title Below)

20

Transatlantic Slavery System

Slave Plantation and Sugar
• Sugar: “Granulated Gold.”
• Even as late as 1670 Barbados 
(Caribbean) was Britain’s largest colony 
in Americas. Also by far its most 
profitable.

• All the colonial powers sought to 
replicate Portuguese success with sugar 
plantations in Brazil.

• This meant the importation of ever 
more African slaves.

Old Institution New Form

• Humanity has known slavery in one form or 
another for the vast majority of its existence.

• Transatlantic slave trade is unique though.
• How: Racial Exclusiveness.
• West African slaves seen as better able to 
resist tropical diseases, more suitable for hot 
humid conditions, and less troublesome: 
Trend of dehumanizing.

• Throughout 18th century slave importation 
outstripped white migration.

Conditions: Facts
• 20‐40% died in the collection raids (most of 
these raids at hands of other Africans.)

• 15% or so died in route (2X average for 
travelers.)

• Branded with owner’s seal upon purchase.
• 16 hour workdays.
• Limiting food – for profit – to keep pliant
• Early on most slaves imported to work on 
Caribbean sugar plantations died within 3 
years.

Attitudes
• “As near to beasts may be setting their souls 
aside”

• Late 18th century slave codes in place: 
Classification as “Chattel” or tangible movable 
property (furniture or domestic animals or a 
car etc) 

• Better treatment only when slaves become 
more valuable.

Options Open to Slaves
• Passive Resistance: Play stupid, break 
tools…basically slow down the workday.

• Escape: Establishment of Maroon 
communities. The Maroon wars in Jamaica 
between 1729 and 1739 ended only by treaty. 

• Slave Revolts: These were actually quite 
frequent.  

Maroon Communities
• These communities were stablished in the most isolated 

and hard to reach places to escape recapture.
• In the 18th century Jamaica, which was taken form the 

Spanish in 1655, becomes England’s largest sugar 
colonies.

• Maroon communities in Jamaica, some dating back to 
the Spanish period, could be quite large with some 
having populations upwards of a 1000.

• They fiercely resisted all attempts at recapture. In fact 
the “Maroon Wars” in Jamaica between 1729 and 1739 
so affected the country’s economy that these 
communities were granted their freedom

Maroon Communities cont.
• In Brazil, a group of maroon  villages, or Quilombos, situated 

deep in the interior were known as the Quilombos of 
Palmares. This settlement possibly harbored as many as 
20,000 escaped slaves and their descendants by the late 
seventeenth century. It fell to the Portuguese in 1694.

• These communities became refuge for other groups fleeing 
the authorities.

• The term Quilombo is supposed to have its origins in Angola 
(possibly from the Bantu language,) and referred to 
communities formed out of people of diverse tribes that came 
together for protection.

• Most Quilombos were destroyed by the powers that be, 
however some di survive. To this day these communities have 
retained a distinct identity and speak Creole Portuguese.*

Haitian Revolution

• Haiti, 1791: Thousands of slaves, and even some 
mixed race freedman, would rebel during the French 
Revolution. Inspired in part by the principles of the 
French Revolution but will then act independently.

• War Lasts until 1804 and at its conclusion Haiti 
emerges as the second republic in America and the 
only ever successful slave revolt in recorded history.

• The Haitian Revolution was long and bloody and 
marked by massacres and atrocities on all sides.

• The United States fearing the precedent of successful 
slave revolt refused to recognize Haiti.

Other Revolts
• 18th century the British become largest importers of 
slaves as they sought to rival Portuguese and French 
sugar production.

• Salve revolts then became quite common.
• British Possessions: Barbados 1675 Antigua 1736, 
Grenada1795, Trinidad in 1805 and Jamaica in 1760, 
1761, and 1831. Jamaica’s 1831 slave revolt was the 
largest faced by the British.

• After the 1831 “Christmas Rebellion Britain was 
forced to accelerate the process of freeing the salves.  
1834 Britain abolished slavery.  (The slave trade had 
been abolished in 1807 but the institution persisted 
until 1834)

Opposition to Slavery In Europe

• Opposition begins to emerge in 18th century.
• Many enlightenment ideologues became 
harsh critics of institution.

• Support for abolishment grows.
• However, wealth and power of sugar planters 
(sugar barons) made them formidable foes. 

Mercantilism

A Particular Economic Mindset

1

Definition (Webster)

• mercantilism

• Function: noun Date: 1

8

3

8

• An economic system developed during the
decay of feudalism to unify and increase the
power and especially the monetary wealth of
a nation by a strict governmental regulation
of the entire national economy usually
through policies designed to secure an
accumulation of bullion, a favorable balance
of trade, the development of agriculture and
manufactures, and the establishment of
foreign trading monopolies

To put things in perspective, let me explain that mercantilism is an early form of
capitalism, but it is not the free trade capitalism with which we are familiar. It is
described sometimes as “state capitalism.” The state is in essence in bed with the
capitalists, and the capitalists support the state.

2

Sir Thomas

Mun

• Mun was, one of the leading lights of mercantilism. The
following quotes are from his tract England’s Treasure by
Foreign Trade (1

6

30)

“The ordinary means to increase our wealth and treasure is by
foreign trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule: to sell
more to strangers yearly tan we consume of theirs in value…

Although a Kingdom may be enriched by gifts received, or by
purchase taken from some other Nations, yet these are things
uncertain and of small consideration when they happen. The
ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is
by Foreign Trade.”

3

Mun

4

Definition Developed
• Excerpt from “Article in the Concise Encyclopedia of

Economics by Laura LaHaye.”

• Mercantilism is economic nationalism for the
purpose of building a wealthy and powerful state.
ADAM SMITH coined the term “mercantile system” to
describe the system of political economy that
sought to enrich the country by restraining imports
and encouraging exports. This system dominated
Western European economic thought and policies
from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries.
The goal of these policies was, supposedly, to
achieve a “favorable” balance of trade that would
bring gold and silver into the country and also to
maintain domestic employment.

5

Bullion

• It helps to know that at that time wealth was
thought of in terms of accumulated precious metals
or bullion (gold and silver)

• This was supposed to exist in limited quantities.

• If your opponent got a hold of it, you lost out, as
there was less for you.

• Wealth equals power. So if your enemy has more
wealth he has more power than you.

• Hence you design a policies to make sure you have

the majority of the bullion.

6

Ramifications?

• Most of the mercantilist policies were the
outgrowth of the relationship between the
governments of the nation-states and their
mercantile classes. In exchange for paying
levies and taxes to support the armies of the
nation-states, the mercantile classes induced
governments to enact policies that would
protect their business interests against foreign
competition; up to and including going to war.

In a world were accumulating gold and silver and constantly maintaining a positive
balance of trade was seen as imperative to magnifying, not only a countries wealth,
but its military power and its national security, trade is no longer simply an individual
undertaking with consequences for those individuals involved, but part of the
national struggle. For you see, should your balance of trade be negative for any length
of time, and your bullion decrease, then your enemies would grow relative in power
to you. That could put your existence and independence on the line. How else could
you pay your armies and fund your wars? Could you then be conquered? Should you
not then go to war to open new markets and acquire access to new goods for trade?

In such an atmosphere, just imagine much can be excused, even by supposedly moral
people, as a necessary evil. For example you could you not justify fighting wars in
distant places to control small tropical islands on which you could establish sugar
plantations? Could you then possibly justify human slavery? After all, slavery made
the sugar plantations function profitably, and having those plantations meant you had
sugar, a valuable in-demand commodity to sell to generate bullion! Just as
importantly it meant that you did not have to buy it from dastardly competitors and
hemorrhage your precious bullion in the process. Having preserved and hopefully
built your wealth (your stock of bullion) you now had the means necessary to pay
your armies, and fight your wars, and remain powerful and independent. In that case,
could society not justify away slavery, or the multiple other forms of horrendous
actions taken to ensure the positive balance of trade and accumulation of bullion!

I am not arguing that mercantilism was the cause of slavery here, but I am
wondering, and asking you to do the same, if such a mindset could attribute to

7

turning a blind eye to horrendous abuses.

7

Mercantilist Wars

• The most clear example of a mercantilist
conflict are the first two of the Anglo-Dutch
Wars, fought in two phases. The first phase
was between 1652-1654 and the second was
between 1665-1667.

• The Dutch had emerged out of the wars of
religion as one of the, if not the, premier
European naval power. They dominated trade
in the Baltic and built the largest mercantile
fleet in Europe.

8

Anglo-Dutch Mercantile War

• The Dutch Navy was able to push its
competitors, including old allies such as the
English out of the East Indies. They dominated
the lucrative herring fishing off the east coast
of England. They also circumvented English
restrictions on trade with England’s North
American Colonies.

• Those along with competing aspirations to
expand their overseas presence and
possession led the two old allies to go to war.

9

End of Anglo-Dutch War

• After the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England which
brought Mary and her husband William of Orange,
the stadtholder of Holland (the de facto leader of the
Dutch Republic,) to the English Throne, these Anglo-
Dutch hostilities came to an end.

• William granted the English Navy many privileges to
assure its loyalty.

• Many Dutch merchant elites moved their operations
to London.

• Holland’s economy stagnated while England’s grew

10

Adam Smith

• The most serious blow dealt to mercantilist
theory, and what many historians/economists
regard as the nails in its coffin as a serious
economic theory, came with the Publication of
The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, in
1776.

• HOWEVER…. See notes below

The heyday of mercantilism was the 17th century. By the 18th this theory was facing
serious challenges from the advocates of free trade (what came to be known as the
liberals – a far different usage of the word than we have today.) By the late 18th

century countries like Holland, England, France, and the United States among others
had abandoned full adherence to the principles of mercantilism. The famous
HOWEVER, this does not mean that such attitudes about trade and wealth ever truly
disappeared. In one form or the other aspects of mercantilist thought have always
been with us, and they occasionally experience a global resurgence.

We should note that some commentators see quasi mercantilist beliefs behind the
current trade disputes facing international trade in 2018.

Concerns over trade imbalances, mushrooming trade deficits, viability of local
industries seen as important to national security…all such things raise reasonable
concerns in a society, and sometimes might call for certain reasonable restrictions on
absolute “laissez faire” free trade. As with all things the key word here is
“reasonable.” Reasonable concerns and reasonable responses! The trick though is
defining what is reasonable, and that answer is far beyond my capacity.

11

Adam Smith

Scottish economist and Philosopher. A leading light of the Scottish enlightenment.
Born 1723 and died 1790.

12

Different Patterns of
Colonization

Examples of Dutch, French and English Colonies in North America.

1

Economics and Type of Colonization

• The way in which European states colonized North America and the
way they interacted with the native population they came in contact
with seems to have been determined by the economic systems of
wealth creation adopted in each colony.

• We are going to examine three examples in this lecture to try and
illustrate what is meant by the argument above.

2

Dutch in New Netherland

• In 1

6

0

9

Dutch East India Company sent an expedition to North America to attempt to
find a fabled passageway to the Pacific.

• This expedition was commanded by an English captain, John Hudson and the river he
sailed came to be known as the Hudson River.

• the first Dutch settlement in the Americas was founded in

16

1

5

. This was Fort Nassau, on
Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany.

• In 1621 the Dutch West India was formed and granted a monopoly over trade in the
Americas. Additional fort built on the Delaware River

• 162

4

a group of about

3

0 Dutch families arrived in the new world. Around 1626 they
settled on an Island at the mouth of the Hudson river (today’s Manhattan island.) The
Dutch Built Fort New Amsterdam, which eventually becomes the capital city of New
Amsterdam. The settlement would eventually spread to what we know as Brooklyn,
Bronx, and Long Island.

• Salves were also brought to the colony around 1625

• By 1633 the Dutch had established forts as far as what as modern day city of Hartford,
on the Connecticut River

3

Dutch North American Colonies Circa 1656

“16

8

5 reprint of a 1656 map of the Dutch North American colonies showing extent of
Dutch claims, from Chesapeake Bay and the Susquehanna River in the South and
West, to Narragansett Bay and the Providence-Blackstone Rivers in the East, to the St.
Lawrence River in the North”

4

Dutch and the Natives

• No great gold and silver mines to exploit.

• No great cities to conquer.

• As a small settlement the Dutch primarily relied on fur trade with the
natives.

• As a small settlement of families there was no great expansion or
intermingling with natives.

• However, peaceful relations had to be maintained as there was economic
reliance on the natives who brought the fur to trade with the Dutch.

• 1664 England takes over the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam and
renames in New York.

5

French in the New World
• Jacques Cartier in the first half of the 16th century began exploration

of the St Lawrence River.

• He and later Samuel de Champlain stumbled upon the Great Lakes.

• In 1608 the French founded colony of New France which was
centered around Quebec.

• Initially most French migrants were young single men traders and
adventurers or missionaries, rather than families.

• Even as late as 1666 the census of New France showed 2034 men and

11

81 women*

* “Statistics for the 1666 Census.” Library and Archives Canada. 2006.

6

Map of New France

“A map of New France made by Samuel de Champlain in 16

12

”
Image in the public domain

7

Champlain’s Habitation c. 1608

Samuel de Champlain – Numérisation d’une page du livre : The works of Samuel de
Champlain in six volumes, Toronto, The Champlain Society,

19

25, reprinted 1971 by
University of Toronto press, volume II, p. 39. / Première
version : [1] http://storage.journaldemontreal.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/jdx-
prod-images/9

15

77772-d0f9-4d54-981b-
b08aa6a

13

e58_ORIGINAL ?quality=80&size=1200x&version=0
In public Domain
Found on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France#/media/File:Champlain_Habitation_de_Q
uebec

8

French and Natives

• Unlike Dutch the French would fan out and thoroughly explore the interior.

• These early arrivals were also interested in trade rather than large scale
farming and so were reliant on natives as trading partners (fur again.)

• The presence of these single young men lead to significant intermingling
with native populations and the emergence of an entire class of mixed race
or metis (French Indian) children who would further expand French
presence and regulate French-Indian relationships to some extent.

• Their relative small numbers also made French look to natives as allies
against the much more numerous English colonists. Hence, relatively
harmonious relations developed.

9

Fur Trade in Canada

William Faden – Library and Archives Canada – originally from: Cartouche from William
Faden, “A map of the Inhabited Part of Canada from the French Surveys; with the
Frontiers of New York and New England”,

17

77
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_colonization_of_the_Americas#/media/File:Fur
_traders_in_canada_1777

10

French Settlers

• To firmly establish the colony and assure its success between 1663-1673
the French King ,Louis XIV, would sponsor groups of single young women to
travel to the New France Colony as prospective brides to the existing male
settlers. Their passages were paid for by the crown, and they were also
assigned small dowries.

• These single young women were referred to as “les filles du rois” or the
kings daughters. About 800 of them travelled to New France in that time
period. They mostly came from poorer common families with no great
prospects back in France. So this was a chance to improve their lot.

• The new young couples were encouraged to have large families. From
3,200 in 1663, The population of New France reached 6,700, in 1672.

• The French also continued to encourage intermarriage with the native
populations in a bid to increase their numbers and further secure the
colony. Compared to the English colonies however their populations
remained small.

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Les Filles Du Rois (1667)

Image in the public Domain
Charles William Jefferys – http://www.classomption.qc.ca/labergef/synth03/404-
7/Filles%20du%20Roy
Found on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_France#/media/File:The_Arrival_of_the_French_
Girls_at_Quebec,_1667_-_C.W._Jefferys

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English

• Initial English colonies in Massachusetts and Virginia appeared ideal for farming.

• Virginia Company Establishes Jamestown 1607. This evolves into Virginia Colony by 1624.

• Plymouth Colony was established by Puritan Settlers in 1620. It was the first permanent
settlement in New England. Initial number of settlers were around 100.

• Different crops were suitable for different areas depending on soil and climate but the
English colonies were mostly farming colonies.

• relatively large numbers of settlers that began arriving from the British Isles. They came
for economic reason, for religious reasons, for legal reasons… In the end England was
relatively small and population growing.

• The new settlers came in large part as family units and established agrarian societies.

• By 1680, the New England colony alone, had a population of around 60,000. Some
estimates put the total English population of the N. America colonies at 150,000 around
that time.

Note that these English colonies were mostly private enterprises not funded directly
by the crown, but by various companies and enterprises. For example the Puritan
colonists who established the Plymouth colony, were English colonists who had
escaped from England to the Netherlands around 1601 due to religious persecution.
They then decided to migrate to the New World to seek land and to preserve their
identity. They purchased the land from the London Company (also known as Virginia
Colony) which held the charter. To do so, they borrowed money from a private
lending group. The English crown was not directly involved in funding any of this. Why
is this important, because settlers did not have to wait on state financing and state
finances to allow them to migrate, rather they raised money from various private
sources and made their own way to the New World.

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Colonies of N. America

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English and Natives

• The arrival of large numbers of families engaged in farming had
consequences.

• Farming families tended to be large. There was also little intermingling with
native populations. Intermingling was actively discouraged and censured.

• necessitated even more expansion and control over more land. This meant
clearing it and fencing it, game animals shot not just for food but as pests
who ate crops.

• The British were introducing a whole new way of life, that not only
precluded the Indians, but adversely effected them by transforming their
traditional hunting grounds and destroying a major food source (wild
game.)

• There was little chance of cordial coexistence. No interdependency and no
intermingling.

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New England

• In New England constant demands for new lands from the settlers
resulted in a series of ferocious wars with native populations in the
1630’s and 1670’s.

• Invariably the natives lost ground to the settlers.

• The same dynamics that aided the Spanish were also at play in North
America as disease and technology helped carry the day for the
Europeans.

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Virginia

• The dynamic was no different in Virginia after the founding of
Jamestown in 1607.

• The crop of choice in Virginia however was Tobacco.

• A boom in Tobacco prices in 1620 as it became popular was a blessing
to the colonists and an absolute curse for the Indians.

• Land cleared, animals shot, land planted with the poisonous,
nutritionally useless weed.

• Situation made even worse in Virginia as the Tobacco boom led to
land speculation and the influx of capital investment. A craze.

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Relations with Native Populations Appears to be
Consistently Determined by Economic Models

• Treatment of native population was not determined by “good
colonists” or “bad colonists” characterizations.

• The same brutality exhibited by the British in dealing with the natives
was on display when the French colonize Louisiana.

• As in British Virginia, French Louisiana became home to plantations
engaged in producing tobacco starting around 1719. The French
planters arrived oftentimes with families.

• Hence land for planting this weed becomes valuable, and as a
consequence the native populations are excluded, driven out or
exterminated.

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Population Growth

• The European/white population of the British colonies in N America
had swelled to as many as 250 thousand by 1700.

• An additional 33 thousand in the Caribbean.

• Beside white population you had 150 thousand African slaves.

• At this point in time the vast majority of those (about 120 thousand
or ¾) were tied to Sugar plantations in the Caribbean.

• Another economic system for wealth creation which for some time
was of greater value and of greater importance than all these others,
was the slave planation system of the Caribbean.

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